Crosstown rivals make for strange bedfellows.
Finding a roommate in the tri-state area can be tough, but for nearly 40 years, the Jets and Giants have shared an apartment. Originally playing in Shea Stadium (and the Polo Grounds before that), the Jets moved into Giants Stadium in the 1980s, and much like a freeloading roommate, they have remained in The Meadowlands ever since.
A new stadium and a new name later, the rivals still share a building, confusing many. Surely, exorbitant New Jersey (or New York) taxes would allow for a stadium for each team, right? … Right?
That's only part of the solution. Here's why the Giants and Jets are best frenemies:
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Why do the Jets and Giants share a stadium?
Simply put, it's all about the money.
It's not cheap to build a stadium. Whether that's through tax dollars or the pockets of team owners, no one wants to foot the bill. That said, it's cheaper for everyone — taxpayers, politicians, even those pesky billionaires — for two New York-area teams to split time at a single building.
While MetLife Stadium wasn't publicly funded, that remained the case for both teams. When MetLife Stadium was being built, the Jets and Giants split the bill evenly for MetLife Stadium, which didn't cost taxpayers anything.
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That said, the partnership hasn't prevented a team from leaving the nest and trying to find their own home through the years. Most famously, a new stadium was proposed to be built on the West Side of Manhattan in the mid-2000s, which was going to be the home of the Jets.
The proposal featured a 75,000-seat stadium with a retractable roof, and was the centerpiece of an attempted Olympic bid. However, the stadium proposal wasn't met with universal approval from taxpayers and politicians, so the project never broke ground.
However, one of the most vocal opponents of the new building was Knicks owner James Dolan, who owned Madison Square Garden. Dolan put heavy financial might against the building of a new stadium, which would have been blocks away from MSG, saying that it would cripple his business interests if a new stadium were to be built nearby. The rest, as they say, is history.
Now, the Jets and Giants remain partners off the field, even if a bit of a rivalry exists on it.